Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts

[Papafox]

Today May 9 we saw a typical down day for TSLA trading over the past few months. The spike down took place maybe a half hour later than normal, about 1:00pm vs 12:30 pm, and we saw a secondary (but weaker) spike down around 2:00pm (see April 18 and 19 trading). Notice too that there was a dip in the first hour of trading, followed by a near recovery. Sometimes such a starting dip and recovery leads to an up day (Mar 24, Apr 15, May 6) and often it has led to down days (Apr 12, 19, 20).

The most likely explanations for the down trading are:
* FUD from Cramer
* Lower earnings projections from Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley
* Lack of news regarding capital raise

 

[Papafox]

Did someone on May 9 actually sell 320 shares for $190.74? Kinda looks that way. AustinEV, maybe your idea of setting up an after-hours buy request substantially below the stock price might snag one of these odd-ball trades.

It's a good reminder that you never want to buy or sell outside normal trading hours unless you're using a limit function.

 

[Papafox]

Want to see bears and bulls in conflict? Here it is!

Bear's view:
* Solar City takes huge hit- Musk is vulnerable
* TSLA has been falling for the better part of 2 weeks now

Bull's view:
* Dow and NASDAQ both way up today
* Reports of X production issues resolved
* Tesla's 10-Q came out today- with a prediction of 50.000 vehicles produced in 2nd half 2016

Observations:
* pre-market continues to be a bad time to buy but a good time to sell
* Usually the post noon dip is the deepest but the one that followed went slightly deeper today
* The shorts really didn't want TSLA to go green today. Look at how it was knocked back down into the red after reaching the starting point (or nearly the 0 point) time and time again. With all the sharp reversals, shorts were clearly spending some money today to keep TSLA from having a green day on this very up day for the broader markets.

 

[Papafox]

A $9 spread between high and low? Wow, this was the breakout that fizzled.
* The pre-market trading has almost become a reverse signal these days. Notice how this is one of the few days when TSLA was down in pre-market recently and yet this was a day with a big climb involved.
* Clearly, the market is nervous and watching for a breakout. Unfortunately, the 11th was a down day for both the Dow and the NASDAQ, but initially the broader markets didn't hold TSLA back from a breathtaking ascent. Unfortunately, the two indices continued down throughout the day, with the DOW losing 217 and NASDAQ losing 49. It was just too much of a drop for a breakout on no news to be sustained.
* The good news? Imagine what TSLA would have done on a day with positive NASDAQ and DOW.

 

[Papafox]

I swear, people who buy stocks during the pre-market must be tired of the pre-market action being a contrarian indicator for the rest of the day, but the trend continues.

Conditions:
* No substantial news (an analyst from 1 smaller firm raised its target price)
* Nasdaq down 23 points for the day

Compare today's chart to the May 10 chart, and you can see a tactic used by the shorts: quickly dash the hopes of longs any time the price action brings TSLA into the green. The shorts can't stop a breakout like we had (for a while) yesterday, but they can nip a small venture into the green quickly so that the hopes of longs don't get too high. The shorts are surely hoping for bad news either on the macro level or for TSLA specifically to push SP down. Should Tesla announce attractive capital funding in the near term, though, the downtrend is over and the uptrend is launched. In fact, it'll be interesting to see what happens with TSLA when the NASDAQ is heading upward again. My guess? TSLA does a breakout.

 

[Papafox]

I thought today could be the day for TSLA's breakout, and in the morning hours it looked promising, with TSLA pushing $211 and the NASDAQ up. Alas, the Nasdaq headed for lower levels in the afternoon hours and TSLA followed, but staying mostly in positive territory rather than sinking into the red as the NASDAQ did. And so TSLA's breakout must wait for a day with better support from broader markets.

Conditions:
* NASDAQ down 19
* DOW down 185

Of interest: Notice the high volume selling that took place around 1:30pm. This was likely a short's effort to induce fear by pulling TSLA well into the red, but hungry buyers immediately brought the price back into the green, which was followed by a tug-of-war before the longs prevailed.

 

[Johann Koeber]

Just want to say thank you to you for this thread. This is the real short term thread, but I like the other one just the same.

oh, and each day we get one day closer to the inevitable break-out.

 

[Papafox]

Today was the day we had hoped to see TSLA make a break-out, since the broader markets were way up, but by noon the uptrend fizzled and we say a decline for most the day.

Conditions:
* Nasdaq up 57
* Dow up 175
* TSLA volume: unusually low

Two possible scenarios:
* We have seen days when the broader markets are way up but TSLA does not follow, and on such days the day traders are likely to shift money from TSLA to stocks that more-closely follow the broader indexes
* The market has taken a "show me" attitude and wants to see proof of execution or proof that a reasonable form of funding for the Model 3 production line exists before the stock gallops back upwards

The wild card:
After hours we learned that George Soros is buying TSLA shares. This development can both spook shorts and embolden longs. It'll be interesting to see what tomorrow brings.

 

[Papafox]

Yes, TSLA is definitely showing a tendency to move towards a higher SP in after-hours trading following the George Soros news

 

[Renaud]

Thanks for the charts! Very informative!

I was disappointed to see it drift to below 210 after that nice spike in the morning. But it's a trend that's been seen many times before.
So ne breakout to 220...
From 12th of April till just before ER we've had as well a similar situation of being capped in a narrow band, waiting, expecting. At the time it was around 250 and the RSI was still above 50. And there was "bad" news around the corner, price started dropping before the ER with people selling the news.
Being oversold now, with the situation improving (X being delivered in greater amount?), I think the odds are for an increase in SP.

 

[Papafox]

Pretty simple story today: no real news, turns out Soros was not buying common stock. TSLA tracking broader market.
Conditions:
* Nasdaq down 53 (1.11%)
* TSLA down 1.74%
* As usual, pre-market traders guessed incorrectly

 

[austinEV]

View attachment 175886
Did someone on May 9 actually sell 320 shares for $190.74? Kinda looks that way. AustinEV, maybe your idea of setting up an after-hours buy request substantially below the stock price might snag one of these odd-ball trades.

It's a good reminder that you never want to buy or sell outside normal trading hours unless you're using a limit function.

That wasn't my order at 190, but I just placed one. wish me luck (and don't place one for 191 or I will hunt you down... )

 

[Papafox]

Dang, instead of putting in a buy order for 191 after hours, I wish I had put in a sell order at 230. Seriously, I'm going to try playing this game in the future to see if it is for real.

 

[austinEV]

View attachment 177068 Dang, instead of putting in a buy order for 191 after hours, I wish I had put in a sell order at 230. Seriously, I'm going to try playing this game in the future to see if it is for real.

One could do both, right? Selling at 230 is a much better proposition than buying at 190 too. I mean you would be selling out of the mother of all after hours white swans, but that is really, really unlikely. A black swan is a real risk on the downside though.

 

[dalalsid]

are these charts from nasdaq.com? If so, I work for the company that makes these charts and you can get sharable images using our charts from technicianapp.com

 

[Papafox]

Cap-Raise Day

Conditions:
* Goldman-Sachs announced a change from hold to buy in morning, which propelled TSLA to 215 before a slow decline began
* Right after market close, a $1.4 Billion equity raise was announced, along with a $600 Million sale of Musk shares in order to pay taxes on the options he was about to exercise.
* Phil LeBeau did a back-of-napkin calculation that equity raise was at about $208.81/share

The shares initially traded below the $208.81/share, but then climbed above it, indicating that the market regarded the cap raise as a net positive. We shall see how sentiment stands tomorrow.

 

[Papafox]

Guessing today's price movements would have been mighty tough. The correct answer was: up, down, up, and up some more. The hint we received from yesterday's after-hours trading was that the stock traded at 211 after some gyrations, instead of the 208.81 that would have been the natural "when in doubt" number, based upon a back-of-the-napkin revenue per stock sold in the latest offering.

Although we saw some decline in SP going into the close, the SP has perked up a bit in after-hours trading, suggesting that there's higher stock prices ahead if the broader markets behave themselves.

Conditions:
* DOW down 91
* NASDAQ down 26

 

[Papafox]

Holy Moly, look at that after-hours trading ; )
TSLA touched 220 and is approaching 219 in after-hours trading

 

[Papafox]

Conditions:
* Dow up 65
* NASDAQ up 57
* Max pain at 220 with 1 month options closing
* Volume nearly 9 million shares (average is 5.45 million)

TSLA got off to a sluggish start, considering the enthusiastic broader markets, perhaps because traders moved money into stocks that are more-closely-tied to broader market movements. At day's end, however, TSLA moved up sharply to close at 220.28 in spite of the higher volume. Cheers for the MM tractor beam today.

 

[GoTslaGo]

@Papafox, Thanks! I kept staring at the chart wondering why the volume looked so low, then I saw the huge spike which changed the scaling on the chart! Glad you posted the volume numbers with the conditions.